One Laptop Per Child slashes workforce in half, cuts salaries

By eSchool News

January 8th, 2009

Citing the poor economy, the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project announced Jan. 7 that it is slashing its workforce by 50 percent, reducing salaries for the remaining staff, and restructuring its operations, CNET reports. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the group that aims to provide low-cost laptops to children in developing countries, announced the cuts in a company blog post: "Like many other nonprofits that are facing tough economic times, One Laptop Per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources. Today we are reducing our team by approximately 50 percent, and there will be salary reductions for the remaining 32 people. While we are saddened by this development, we remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries. We thank team members who are departing for their contributions to this important mission…" Negroponte wrote that the group will focus on development of its second-generation device, but it will hand off development of the Sugar operating system to the open-source community. The Cambridge, Mass.-based project has faced its share of challenges in the three years since it was formed. Its XO laptops initially cost $188 each instead of the anticipated $100, and some countries are scaling back their deployment plans…